To qualify for a loan, we paid someone to bolt the house to the ground so it wouldn’t blow away in a tornado. In order to get an appraisal, we tore out carpet, installed kitchen cabinets, and repainted half the rooms. We worked like dogs on the grounds, chopping through layers of weeds to unearth long lost gardens. The swimming pool was toast so Lyle suggested we fill it in and grow vegetables.

We celebrated our closing with champagne. The next day we bought a life-sized zebra made of Mexican milk cans, named him Spot and stood him between two clumps of Pampas grass in the front yard. We slept in the house for the first time the day after Christmas, and threw a big party a week later on the first day of 2010.

The photo album on the table inside the front door features pictures of our friends from that first New Year’s Day party. Neighbor Joe quipped that we were making it easy for the FBI. Since then, we’ve thrown countless parties and potlucks. Each time someone new shows up, we take their picture with Spot and paste it in the album. The most recent photo brought the tally to 199.

Over the years, we’ve planted fruit trees, peonies, and roses, plugged mushroom logs, put in a fig and some scuppernongs, cut down the poplars, clawed the honeysuckle from the fence, and repainted the zebra. Inside, the new floors are already showing wear. The kitchen linoleum wears a scar from the day they installed the new gas stove, and a tiny cut for every time we’ve dropped a knife. The cupboards are well stocked, there’s home baked bread on the counter, and the smell of fried okra and cut roses mingle in the air.

Objectively this is not a pretty house, and the furnishings aren’t anything to write home about. Neither Bob nor I are very interested in home decorating beyond framed art, fresh flowers, and curtains to soften the light as it enters the house. Nearly everything here is second hand. Dana gave us her comfy couch and chair, Matt gave Bob his father’s big desk, and we bought mine at a thrift store. Scott left us tables and chairs and I found my bedroom dresser and mirror for free at the recycle center.

It keeps us cool and dry in the summer, warm in the winter, and gives us somewhere to entertain. This is where we come for a cold drink and a shower, for a lay in the hammock on the back porch. It’s where we store our clothes, where we read and write, where we come to get away from the world. Under this roof, we’ve made tough decisions and comforted each other after apocalyptic nightmares. It feels like home.

This house is not our home because we fell in love with it, or because it’s what we’ve been looking for all our lives, or because it was in the family for a generation or two. I rarely notice the shutters. I’m usually looking for flowers, or weeds, or branches to trim. Inside, I see the yard from behind windows; vinca and roses from the kitchen sink, sunsets and figs from the bedroom, the front yard with the zebra from my desk. It’s our home because of the work we’ve put into it, the meals we’ve eaten here, and the laughter and tears we’ve shared with friends. It’s our home because it’s where we sleep and dream.

Our hosts baked dozens of cupcakes and set up a coffee bar with locally roasted coffee from Plant neighbor Aromatic Roasting Company. Many guests brought plates of home-made confections. There were party lights and the hum of expectant energy. Settled in with coffee and cake, we began introducing ourselves.

Heartfelt and articulate, we heard from hospice professionals, women who had lost their husbands, men who had lost a child and people who hadn’t lost anyone yet but knew their time would inevitably arrive. Some spoke of good good-byes, others of natural burials, the world of the unseen, being awakened to death and unrequited grief. We talked about how common it was to care for the sick and dying at home a couple generations ago. How it was when family witnessed the transition and prepared the deceased for burial, often laying them to rest on family land.

With seventy-five million baby boomers aged fifty-two to seventy, the time is ripe for a new awareness. Many question the necessity of $7,000 to $10,000 funerals involving iron-clad coffins, embalming, and concrete liners. Biodegradable coffins and home burials are becoming common with the help of a blossoming natural death industry.

After two hours of listening and sharing, I left feeling less daunted by my aging parent’s eventual passing and more prepared to put my own affairs in order. And perhaps Bob and I will find a nice tree to settle under when our time on earth is up.

Resources:
DeathCafe.com

Compassion and Choices

Locally:
Piedmont Pine Coffins

One day, a turtle wandered by and seeing the little frog, began to tell him about the wonders of the sea. “The sea? Hah! It’s paradise in here. Nothing can be better than this well. Why don’t you come down and share my joy?” The turtle pushed his head into the small opening couldn’t get his shell to fit so he said, “Why don’t you come to the sea instead?”

Twenty-one years ago, I married my soul mate, Bob Armantrout in Loveland, Colorado, the place where we had met and fell in love. Lucky to be born in the USA, we soon manifested our own gleaming version of the American dream. We bought a sporty black car and a little horse property and settled in.

Soon enough, our life didn’t look quite as shiny. Early every weekday Bob strapped himself into his forty minute commute to a stressful job he didn’t enjoy. After dark, he’d return and down a couple of white Russians before relaxing enough to eat dinner. Often he would confide that he had not taken so much as a bathroom break all day.

Meanwhile, I ran a little boarding business on our seven acres, working outside, riding with our neighbors and keeping house. I loved my life but complained, “I have the life, and you pay the price.” It galled me that Bob wasn’t there to share my happiness. This wasn’t what I’d signed up for, a perfect life at my husband’s expense.

The American dream felt like a trap and yet, we couldn’t imagine an alternative. My analogy at the time was that it was like being in a kitchen that had suddenly caught fire. We were panicked and confused and the only course of action that made any sense was to run out of the room.

It was a dream of the sea which finally woke us up. One morning, Bob and I both recounted similar dreams in which we were feeling trapped, when suddenly we noticed the ocean nearby. We had only to step out of our life onto the beach and we would be free.

So we sold or gave away everything, including the horse and hay truck and left the country. We weren’t going to be like the little frog trapped in a well, insisting that there wasn’t any more to life than what we had experienced. Instead, we went off in search of a new perspective.

Here’s how I think the fable should end: Said the frog to the turtle, “I will go to the sea with you if only I can figure out how to climb out of this well.” With that, the turtle went and got a long rope and gripping one end in his strong beak, threw the rest down the well. The little frog wrapped his little webbed feet around the rope and the turtle pulled until he made it to the mouth of the well. Then, together the two new friends went off in search of the sea.

The art of sharing begins in childhood. As a short-lived only child, I did not have to share my parents or anything else until my little brothers began to arrive. I recall learning at school that if you had an apple and your friend did not, you should cut the apple in half and give them the bigger half.

At the dinner table, I learned to stay my appetite for second helpings until the boys had taken their share. Ditto for thirds. These early lessons explain my obsession with leftovers (no one else wants them, so they are mine, all mine!) and a tendency towards sneaky eating, resulting in a lifelong struggle with the scale.

In my professional life, the diverse hive of activity at The Plant is rife with sharing challenges. When the farmers build their Spring planting beds, tractors hurry back and forth across the main drag, leaving tracks of red clay on the asphalt. The winery fills the parking lot with polyester-clad tasters, industrial aromas of insecticide and biodiesel permeate the air, and the massage therapist strives to provide her clients a pleasant-smelling, quiet experience. On at least one occasion, a swarm of bees left the hives to colonize one of the offices.

It requires open communication and diligent surveillance to keep all factions reasonably satisfied when what one business needs to operate is in direct conflict with what another requires. Fortunately, we are all up to the task. Bob has helped this effort immensely by tackling the issues head-on and putting in place community institutions such as FAC  in his greenhouse. Friday Afternoon Club is the perfect way for tenants to unwind after a busy week, strengthen friendships and chew on the topics of the day.

Obviously small, communicative groups deal with diversity in the way that larger or more factionalized groups do not. The news is full of stories about failed relationships between families, neighbors, countries, ideologies and species. Human disregard for the other life-forms that share planet earth is the ultimate example of inadequate sharing protocols.

Last month, North Carolina’s Duke University made international news when they “canceled plans for Muslim students to sound the traditional call to prayer from the school’s iconic chapel tower amid threats of violence and a backlash from anti-Muslim groups, conservatives and Christian leaders.” Despite the chapel having been shared between Christians and Muslims for decades, apparently, broadcast prayers was over-the-top. Having lived with daily broadcast prayer in Africa, I was happy that line was drawn.

On Tuesday, ten miles away in nearby Chapel Hill, a dispute over sharing parking lot spaces led to the execution-style murder of three young students who happened to be Muslims. This story also received global coverage. I couldn’t help but sense a connection between these two indicents. The consequences for not working out problems, can be deadly.

As a result of these musing, I’ve come to two conclusions about sharing:
1. Keep it small because large groups don’t share well.
2. Communication and compromise are the keys to a long life.

Sources:

In Chapel Hill Shooting of 3 Muslims, a Question of Motive

Amid Threats, Duke Moves Muslim Call to Prayer

Most every morning for the past month, I take my old ink pen and write in my dreamy little book. As I write, the words I choose highlight my feelings about what’s going on in my life and it’s plain to see that the images reflect things I saw, heard or thought recently. I’ve begun to add a few lines after each dream entry about what’s going on in real life.

For example, if I was gardening near our picket fence and thinking about how it needed paint and later telling someone about how I want to start riding again, I dream about three horses getting their heads stuck in the picket fence. Which ties in with having our three daughters here and memories of my little brother getting his head stuck in the picket fence when he was a baby.

Here’s a typical entry:
At a party I met a woman traveling to Ghana. We had just left. Maybe we were in Morocco. She needed cream rinse [conditioner] and I offered her mine because I wouldn’t need it in transition but told her she would have to come to our house to get it. So she did and left and I forgot to give her the cream rinse.
In real life – Molly was visiting and left her conditioner and shampoo behind. Also, I read Sala’s latest two reports about her trip back to Ghana yesterday.

So, while some would look their dreams up in a dream book and others suggest they are messages from a higher consciousness, I’m beginning to think they pretty much all pull from my daily life, my subconscious, memories, fears, hopes and dreams.